jerryskids

@TimHauck, I'm at my desk so here is a summary: The instructor was a biology professor and nominally Lutheran, although he said he associates more with Buddhism on this topic (perhaps explained at the end). He started by presuming there is often a dichotomy of hard core people on both sides who refuse to see the other side. The religious side, he mostly conflated with Christianity. [Side note: he referred this side as "MAGA" which I found at best lazy and at worst bigoted. At one point he said "believe it or not I have a harder time discussing this with the hard-core science folks vs. MAGA," I presume because MAGA folks are stoopid. More side note: this was at a retirement home. Between the head nodding at the MAGA comment and the attendance at the no-kings protests, I'm wondering what's happening to our elderly? Are they entering some phase like the movie "Cocoon" where they mentally go back to their early 20s and lose all their wisdom?] Back on topic: He spent most of the class showing why each side of the dichotomy is wrong. Starting with the religious side, he said that the word "day" in Genesis comes from "yowm" in the original language (Greek? Hebrew? I missed it.) Anyway, the word more accurately refers to an indeterminate period of time. He also showed why evolution has been proven. Frankly, I personally found this track uninteresting because I know the basics of these arguments. The science side was more interesting. He explained inductive reasoning and, during the Enlightenment, the introduction of the scientific method (deductive reasoning). We broke into small groups and analyzed a picture with two chairs to identify differences -- the size difference was an optical illusion; we assumed they were different without measuring them. He then went through in more detail an experiment/paper he led studying tiger beetles in SE Arizona (fascinating creatures, I'll skip details). Despite all efforts to measure and account for what couldn't be measured, the team inevitably made assumptions. Which led to his takeaway: assumptions are basically faith. Citations of earlier experiments are also faith; faith that the experiment was accurate and the scientists were honest. (We did talk about dishonest scientists, but it wasn't that relevant IMO). Ergo, scientists have no problem with faith in their assumptions, or the work of peers, so it is not unreasonable to have faith in God. The best thing IMO that came out of the class was a comment by a woman in the audience during Q&A. She described a letter that Galileo wrote to the Grand Duchess Christina (can size unknown), in which he describes his belief that science can not only co-exist with faith, but is part of God's gift to us, to discover his creation. The awesome quote from this: "That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven. not how heaven goes." Full letter: https://web.stanford.edu/~jsabol/certainty/readings/Galileo-LetterDuchessChristina.pdf Wiki summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_to_the_Grand_Duchess_Christina I walked away feeling it was a bit of a yin/yang thing, which I guess is Taoist or perhaps somewhat Buddhist in thinking. Final note: I'm slow-watching Dexter while I do some short exercises and/or stretches. I'm on season 6 which is a religious theme. Yesterday morning before class, they introduced the concept of the Second Law of Thermodynamics (entropy: energy moves towards a state of increasing randomness/disorder) and how it is inconsistent with life and its increasing organization. I've since researched and found that the answer was proposed by Schroedinger: This, Schrödinger argues, is what differentiates life from other forms of the organization of matter. In this direction, although life's dynamics may be argued to go against the tendency of the second law, life does not in any way conflict with or invalidate this law, because the principle that entropy can only increase or remain constant applies only to a closed system which is adiabatically isolated, meaning no heat can enter or leave, and the physical and chemical processes which make life possible do not occur in adiabatic isolation, i.e. living systems are open systems. Whenever a system can exchange either heat or matter with its environment, an entropy decrease of that system is entirely compatible with the second law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_and_life

I have no idea regarding the relevance of your first statement to this discussion, unless you are implying that Israel may choose to bomb population centers in the future, which I find highly unlikely. I agree with your second sentence and couldn't come up with a good shorthand while typing on my phone. Perhaps "Islamic countries which have stated a desire to eradicate Israel?" Otherwise, there isn't much nuance here, let alone deep nuance. It isn't complicated. The solution, for the current situation, is to destroy Iran's nuclear capability.

Israel controls Iran's airspace and continues to focus on military and nuclear targets. What would Iran do if they controlled Israel's airspace? What other "truth" is relevant here?

Thanks, I saw that video this morning. Concepts like quantum entanglement and the multiverse are mind blowing and introduce so many opportunities. Short answer is the class was pretty good. I'm on my phone waiting for an appointment, so I'll type more later.

I don't BLAME Iran. But it's not in the interest of the world let alone Israel to allow a country who is hell bent on destroying Israel and on funding every major terror organization as a proxy. If Islamic countries put down there weapons, Israel would give them peace. If Israel put down their weapons, there would be no Israel. This is 100% true, and anyone who doesn't see it is inflicted with the Leftist incorrect belief that other cultures behave like we would.

No, it's correct. It is idiocy to allow them the physical ability to enrich uranium, then think you can limit it to lower grade levels. Also, there is a compilation video circulating with 16 minutes of Trump saying Iran can never have nuclear capabilities going back to 2011 I believe. This isn't a new position for him.

Obama's deal allowed them to develop nuclear capabilities, but just for power plants, not weapons. What a joke; Iran sits on an ocean of oil but they need nuclear reactors. Must be a climate change thing! Trump wants zero nuclear. Big difference. And the way it should be.

My point is that we have been supporting Ukraine. Also, to differentiate the two more, Russia has shown that they are a good stewart of nuclear weapons for the 70-is years they've had them. Iran can absolutely not be trusted with nukes. What war? At most we drop some bunker busters, but I already said that I doubt that will be necessary. Iran's military is shot. Like you said, we've supported Israel for years, Iran hasn't attacked us yet. And with what? They are launching like one missile a night now, but are afraid to do more because all that does is tell Israel where they are shooting from so that Israel can go destroy it. They have no control of their airspace.

Dang, I'm trying to catch up and I keep conflating UN and NATO! You win Gutter, we shouldn't help Israel with Iran, there is no moral clarity there, but we should throw another $100B to Ukraine to show our lack of support. Tucker would be proud of you.

My bad, I meant NATO.

Educate us about Iran's retaliation when we killed Soleimani.

Not necessarily. The Russia/Ukraine situation is farm more complex and far less morally clear. One, Russia has a decent claim to the Donbas and Crimea regions. Two, Ukraine is not in the UN. HTH

I've never supported Putin's invasion. Feel free to find a post of mine that has done so.

Awesome, thanks! She may be the perfect girl.

I've always been peace through strength. Has everyone lost the lead that Iran is the primary supporter of Hamas, Hezbollah, Huthis, Muslim Brotherhood... they gave Hamas the order to go rape and kill Israeli women and children. As Israel surgically strikes military targets, Iran launches missiles into population centers. There is such obvious moral clarity on this. Well, for those with a moral compass.

Something recent?

Yes. But only if Israel can't do it. It's hard to believe, given how prepared Israel has obviously been for this, that they don't have a plan for it. Regardless, the facility needs to be destroyed. What, are you following Tucker now? I wouldn't be surprised if he is cashing some sweet sweet Qatari checks, the way he is licking Iran's balls these days. Derp don't make Iran mad derp! Iran has plenty of incentive to attack us, where is it? How about those sleeper cells in Israel? Trump has kept Khomeini alive with the warning that Trump will end him and the regime if he does something stupid. I mean, the regime is likely done anyway, but the guy can hope, right?

I think that just because you group a bunch of people into a long acronym, doesn't mean that the gay and trans situations are the same. There are plenty of examples where I don't think trans people should be protected. A few examples: women's prisons, women's sports (generally), customer facing positions within companies. So I don't believe in the same sort of protections for trans as given to, say, race/ethnicity. HTH

This is a big case, dummy. Adults are talking, and seafoam. Shh.

This could be big. This seems to be saying that trans children are not a protected class. Which might lead to saying trans adults are not a protected class.

Here is the description: Such discussions usually conclude that they do NOT conflict, in my experience. But I always enjoy a good metaphysics discussion.

I think this is the question you mentioned this morning. I believe there were most likely paid people at many of the actual protests (not three people in a bar who signed up), to organize things, set up hydration stations, probably hand out signs, etc. I believe that there were probably some paid people protesting at the larger events. Not necessarily a lot: a mob just needs a few people to lead the way with chants etc. I don't know enough about the bussing to comment. It seems like somebody would have some evidence (like, videos of said buses) if it were true. But I haven't looked into it. HTH

Thousands of years? Time is much more complex than that. We know it is not a constant: Einstein showed us it slows down with velocity and gravity, that we know of. An almighty being is likely not constrained with the human experience of time. Science! On a coincidental note, tomorrow afternoon I'm taking a class entitled "Science and Faith in Conflict." I'm interested in what direction they take it.

Personally, I agree with you regarding approach. As I've done here recently, I concede that some people truly believe they are the opposite sex. But that doesn't mean that the biological males should be able to compete with biological females. That being said, none of this addresses Riley's motivations for her comments.

The substance is the context of what she was quoting, which is no longer there. Be better. But I'll try one more time a different way: Gaines' goal is to get men out of women's sports. There are people who influence that decision who do not compete in those sports. So it is in her interest to spread the message that men are not women beyond a sports-only discussion. We went through this basic discussion last week and I thought you understood it. It seems you still don't, or don't want to, or don't want to admit it. Keep focusing on the important stuff on this topic Tim: your yip yip need to think bad thoughts about Riley.